Tag Archives: beauty

intuition, aesthetics & what is beautiful…

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kiss the fragrance in static beauty...

What is at the heart of aesthetics? My thesis ranted about the poetics of aesthetics, the understanding of communication needed about ’what is art?,’ the philosophical codes used to navigate ethics, mataphysics, perceptions & sentimentality…..wow….but it’s much more intuitive…..the ethereal, aura of beauty….

…..as it is said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder…..

The beautiful, one way or another, always shakes us. Seeing the world through new eyes, leaving behind conceptual habits & narrow-mindedness makes life seem anew. Beauty takes us out of a ghost world, opens us to an unmeasurable, unpredictable abundance of sounds, perfumes, lines, textures, colors that amaze & renew us. Beauty brings a fresh wind to our minds. It does not attack with logic the stronghold of our beliefs, rather it introduces a new dimension that amazingly changes our viewpoint. The experience of natural beauty forces us to leave behind the empty boxes of our cliches & to perceive the world around us in all its complexity & richness. Just a few moments’ attention is all that is needed……

………Piero Ferrucci….Beauty & the Soul

Contentment…like finding flowers in winter…

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           winter flowers….a tiny miracle…
Spiritual life is a fine balance between effort & surrender. In spite of what the fast-food spiritual teachers of our time claim, spiritual practice requires tremendous effort, & effort brings with it tension. We need to relax that tension, so we might open to the grace, depth, & energetic subtleties that result from practice. We learn to gracefully receive what life gives us, rather than demand that life should always give us what we want. This is contentment…..Mariana Caplan
Just full of it today! Loads of life out on a simple stroll…..it’s all just right here….all here & gone…a glimpse of ‘suchness’….
“So let me get this clear,” I said, as I walked up to my teacher’s desk. “You’re telling me that I absolutely cannot trust myself because the mind is conditioned, confused, & full of lies & deceit, & at the same time, I must trust myself implicitly because there is nothing else I can trust.”
“Exactly,” he said……Mariana Caplan
Just rolling along…
 

it’s a beautiful day…

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big sky...big life...

the waiting of winter, of soul’s light…captured in this luminous poem…

Eye Mask…

In this dark I rest,

unready for the light which dawns

day after day,

eager to be shared.

Black silk, shelter me.

I need

more of the night before I open

eyes & heart

to illumination. I must still

grow in the dark like a root

not ready, not ready at all.

Denise Levertov

it’s a haunting day…..ethereal & moving…

…’soul making’ wrote philosopher Jean Houston, ‘is not necessarily a happy thing. Crucial parts of it are not. We need to hold onto the celebration of becoming, to the bliss that wells up from the deeper places we’re tapping…I stared into the night, my heart pounding…..Sue Monk Kidd

don’t forget…it’s a beautiful day… 

cold blue sunsets

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cold blue

This view from above, riding on the wings of a plane, reminds me of crisp & crunchy snow….anticipating….

Do you notice the changing season? The shorter days? How deeply?

I was shocked on my evening walk by how dark it was….by how beautiful the sunset. I remembered how quickly I scooted through my day….

Grasping at the holiday season does not mean we savor it better…hmmm…

I think I’m enjoying it all….& then suddenly I realize that we still need to loosen our grip on experiences we enjoy to have a deeper relationship with them.

The cold blue is here & I am still listening for rustling leaves….

Full moon…..just so ya know…..ahhh…

I have a ‘moonroof’ above my bed.

It’s the space of the sublime as referenced yesterday…..

Looking for simplicity & space….

….there is nothing else to be doing. Just this. When one thing is done, you will do the next thing, & that will be the only thing there is….the challenge is to tune in to the experience of simplicity…….

A. Karr & M. Wood…..The Practice of Contemplative Photography

cold moon

to be seen….the edge of awkward

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saturation

This transcendental quality of art can be the potentiality of magic. Beauty shared, an aesthetic intelligence noticed, is what draws us into our own receptivity.

Everything is gestation & then bringing forth. To let each impression &  each germ of a feeling come to completion wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one’s own intelligence, & await with deep humility & patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist’s life…understanding as in creating…………Rilke

We hardly notice……but the heart knows….as a central core….a vital cause of transparency….

Beware….we may discover red or crimson or magenta for the first time.

No amount of skillful invention can replace the essential element of imagination….Edward Hopper

Beware…..we may stumble to this edge too often….complacency never returning….never hidden by fog again….

Perspicacity & the Rogue Spirit

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Well, I’ve been deflated….Read this…

Mindfulness practice does lead to happiness, but not because the stuff of the mundane now—its sights, sounds, and the consciousness that knows them—turns out to be better than we’d thought. Despite the myth, bare attention doesn’t expose some hidden core of radiance in the empty vibrations; no such core exists…….Cynthia Thatcher

So how can I appreciate beauty so deeply the way I do without being attached? How to understand the striving vs. the knowing? Age old quandary?

Must be a rogue spirit. Indifference vs. liberation?

my hodge-podge of beauty

Will continue to put all of my lovely things, ideas and values in a hodge-podge to pull a little more beauty from the day.

Words like Beauty can be Meaningless

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aesthetics & the search for meaning

Have you done any mind mapping? I love it! I can conceptualize the vagaries of beauty. Lovely.

Beauty is actually about vision and awareness. Where do your eyes lead you? In relation to what is actually captured, noticed or manifested?

Ilusion shadows with light direction, light source, and focus. How can I see better? Wiser? Deeper?

Mind mapping turned me back to questioning again and again. I had to stop looking and begin seeing.

Fresh eyes. Yes. Intention through wandering. Perspective.

Very similar to mindfulness training. When we’re blinded by light, we lose our shadows.

We need space for beauty. Space for the questions.

Remember to Make-Believe…

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A gentle nudge to laugh, lose control, curl up, get out of your routine, nap, tell a dumb joke, hug someone unexpectedly, look for the moon, read about the circus, take photos in your yard, listen, ignore your to-do list for one day, eat something equal parts yummy and healthy…followed by chocolate, argue about how important magic is, read a really good poem (I can help with that…more on that later), sit…really……just sit, sleep in and then go to brunch, go to the movies with a frazzled friend, hang out with your family, lie down with your legs up the wall…..just try it, say no to some things on your really full schedule, try to leisurely  Christmas shop, leave notes for special people, check out kindness tricks, get a massage, clean out your winter sweaters….then buy a really cozy new one, do something different during your lunch break, shop at a vintage store, pretend you are a life coach for a day, and listen to a little music like you’ve just found someone important…

A little magic…

unexpected light...

Messy Questions as Art Fodder

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to question...

This is where much of my journey began….with a deep passion for altered books and collage. This particular one brought much of my internal questioning into my art. My art has  evolved since then….with my advisor’s suggestion to move gently away from craft into art, I am intently focused on the quandary that comes from meshing process with product, beauty with fear, and the pitfalls of spiritual inquiry with the flow of authentic questioning. Not easy to define.

None of this matters of course if you don’t get to the studio! That’s always the main struggle. Once I’m there…..ahhhhhh.

Heron Dance is deeply inspiring on all levels of art and questioning. ‘A Pause for Beauty’ arrives daily and urges the subtle gleanings to the studio. If you make art, write or question, I highly recommend it.

More on the specific questions later….

A New Era

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Blogging in the midst of a very real life is going to reveal a new authenticity. Wow. So…….feeling like ‘a little kid at Christmas,’ anticipating and peeking around the corner for surprises, I invite the curious blog reader, searcher, character, playful artist, the serious-spirit-bound-seeker to the  bored-with-whatever-commiserator, to join me on a quest and/or commentary on the aesthetics of the everyday.